Owning your own home

Good experience but we effectively bought as trade and negotiated a hefty discount - you'd most likely have to buy through your fitter who may try and make a margin on the kitchen. Or if they're a big Howdens customer they might be able to get a really good discount...

Very happy with the quality. Availability in a wider range of widths swung us from Ikea - would have ended up with a lot of filler.

I think it depends on your fitter. We used Howdens who made a few mistakes with the layout and measurement (missing some pipes, etc.). Luckily our fitter spotted the mistakes before he began and was able to work around them, but we had to compromise with loss of space in some cupboards. Howdens also sent some of the wrong bits.

Quality of the actual units was fine. It's just coated chipboard/MDF I think. MDF is a poor choice of material for kitchens and bathrooms because if it gets wet it swells and splits. If I was getting a new kitchen I'd be sure not to use it.

We've just got an Ikea kitchen done. I'd rate their planning service.

We went to wickes and got our kitchen measured up & designed then we went to Ikea and bought one of theirs- kitchen looks good, didn't have any issues.

We fitted our own kitchen again (we weren't planning on doing so).

Can't say much on Howdens, we didn't look at them, and were put off by the amount of space taken up for the pipe work gap. We went with DIY Kitchens, who got into the WHICH ratings for the first time the other year, and came out top. They were pretty good and happy to correct my mistakes. They do only have one showroom (Leeds way) though. DIY Kitchens also had good deals on worktops, and are happy for you to not order a worktop at all.

Re IKEA, they didn't used to have a gap down the back, I don't know if the new design now does, but that made fitting them a bit of a pain. Also, as they are flat pack, if you're paying someone to put them together, don't forget that you have to factor that time into the cost vs prebuilt ones.

Also, don't forget that you can also get handles from elsewhere too. Ironmongery direct has a pretty good range, and were helpful when a supplier switched their handle design (but not the product ID) leading to us getting two handle designs that looked different, but should have been the same.